Chapter 150: Beautiful

This is Easter Sunday, a day in celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection after he was crucified. Of course, you’d never really know that based on the general treatment this holiday gets in the media, as well as by the bulk of the general public. Sure, you’ve always got those people who will suddenly start bringing up Jesus in Facebook and Twitter posts, then go back to posting up a bunch of booty pictures tomorrow, but even those seem pretty sparse this year. I’m perfectly fine with that. Easter isn’t one of those holidays that you really care about once you reach a certain age, when you stop getting a basket or coloring eggs or any of those social traditions that don’t relate to the original concept of the holiday in any way. Of course, once you’ve reached that age you typically replace your basket and eggs and such with an onslaught of feelings of guilt for your general lack of enthusiasm for the religion you were brought up with… at least, you do if that religion is any sect of Christianity. I’m over religious holidays, in general. I’m not an overly religious person, nor am I an overly non-religious person. I fall somewhere in the middle. I believe what works for me. I have always believed that everybody has their own personal, separate relationship with their creator and, as such, they all have their own personal, separate understanding of what is right and what is wrong for them. What I believe and what is right for me is not the same as it is for anybody else because my relationship with my concept of a creator is not the same as anybody else’s relationship with theirs. This is a large part of my issue with organized religion because they refuse to accept the concept that everybody has a separate truth – to most organized religious groups there is one truth and one truth only and everybody else is wrong. It just seems like a really closed-minded way to view the world.

Right off the top here, I would also like to mention the fact that, holy crap, this is my 150th day of keeping this blog. That is extremely close to halfway through the year and I can’t help but feel really proud of my stick-to-it-iveness. Sure, there have been a few random days where I have kind of crapped out on writing an actual blog but nearly halfway through the year I can still count those days on one hand, I believe. Like I said, I am just really proud of myself. I think the actual story that this blog is telling still hasn’t fully come together or found it’s form yet but I do feel like it is well on it’s way to it. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t feel that way until the blog has actually been completed. I think it is one of those things that I won’t fully realize until after the fact. Either way, though, I am really excited with what I have accomplished here thus far. I am really proud of this project and all that is going to wind up coming of it. On the topic of projects, though, there is one that I do kind of need to mention here that is not shaping up quite as expected – the weekly YouTube series that I have talked about starting. All I can really say is not to expect it anytime soon. Upon further reflection on the whole concept of it, I have decided that it could really use some re-tooling. The thing is, the focus will still definitely be on inspiration and the various forms it can take but I am thinking of doing it on a much broader scale than focusing on different celebrities and artists that are an inspiration to me. I kind of want to focus more on different acts that people perform that are inspiring. I also have this idea of doing interview type segments with different everyday artistic types about what inspires them. I really love the idea of learning about how others are inspired and kind of showcasing various types of inspiration beyond just the things that inspire me in my life and my art. I’m not entirely sure of where I plan to go with the whole thing or how I plan to work that out exactly but I think this is a much better direction for me to go in than what I was planning before. It just seems to me like the previous idea I had was a little too me-focused. This isn’t really about me, at least not entirely, but I know how easy it would be for me to fall into the habit of making it all about me and I don’t want to do that. Don’t get me wrong, my thoughts and inspirations are truly fascinating and would be good enough but that isn’t what I am shooting for here.

Speaking of everyday types who have been an inspiration to me, let me take a second to talk about my friend April, who I hung out with on Friday night. We hadn’t seen each other in a pretty long time and getting together to catch up was a lot of fun. One of the major topics of conversation throughout the evening was makeup and general health and beauty products and such. One thing that April told me about that I really took to heart was different types of skin products. As I have mentioned here multiple times, I have fallen in love with Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser and my complexion has cleared up immensely since I started using this product. I have found myself looking at and loving my skin more than I ever imagined I could. This is the first time I have ever had a skin care regime and I am still kind of learning all the ins and outs of trying to maintain clean, healthy looking skin. I have been simply using the Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser every morning and simply leaving it at that. I always kind of felt like it would make sense to do some sort of facial cleansing before bed, as well, but I’ve never been sure of what to do in the evening. April told me about a few different products that she uses that she thought could be really helpful for me. She mentioned a gentle facial bar soap to wash the face at night, as well as moisturizer. She actually brought me a couple of sample-sized versions of the moisturizer she uses, from Clinique. So, I figured this would be a good thing to give a shot. It has been very important to me to try to develop a fuller skin care regime recently because my skin has improved so much recently and I really want to maintain that. I have talked a lot about a few different shows I have been watching lately, including Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty” and “TRANSform Me,” which are very focused on trying to help women feel good about their looks and bodies, and trying to help them to see how beautiful they truly are. I wouldn’t say that I have had a lot of issues over the years as far as my face goes but I have definitely had body image issues. Still, I have discovered recently the power of little things like having skin that looks and feels good and makeup that accentuates the positives of your face. These things have really helped me to recognize a lot of my own beauty and I really cherish that. It means more to me than I can express in words here to look at myself in the mirror before I start my day and to feel like I look beautiful. It is a very powerful thing. I know it sounds cheesy to sit here and cite this as an influence but it really reminds me of a song; a song that I feel is one of the greatest songs ever written. If you haven’t guessed by now, you must not know me as well as you think. Of course I am talking about Christina Aguilera singing Linda Perry’s absolute masterpiece of a song, “Beautiful.” The very first time I heard that song I remember thinking to myself, “My God, what a powerful statement that makes.” In general, as a society, we have been raised to feel like it is wrong or a bad thing to be able to look at ourselves and say, “I am beautiful, no matter what they say.” It really seems like people are beginning to see the light about this matter nowadays. Not only is it positive but extremely important to our growth and development as people to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and absolutely love what we see. I don’t just mean our physical selves, either. We, as human beings, need to be able to look at ourselves inside and out and truly love what we find there. It is far too rare that people are able to honestly feel that way about both inside and out. I can’t even honestly say that I do completely. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love myself inside and out but I still have moments where I feel insecure or unhappy with different parts of myself. That is completely natural, though, and I don’t really believe that anybody is ever going to be completely happy with themselves 100% of the time. What they can do, and what I do, is be able to take a step back from those individual moments and honestly say that, as a whole, I absolutely love myself inside and out. As I said before, I feel like these various TV shows focused on helping people recognize their own beauty are the most important programs on television right now because when you are able to feel good about what you have on the outside, you will slowly but surely become considerably happier with the way you feel on the inside, as well. The two go hand-in-hand so much that it seems like it would be pretty impossible to have one without starting to develop the other.

Speaking of feeling beautiful on the outside, my Mom and I had a bit of a long talk earlier today about our quest to lose weight. We both kind of admitted that we had become stagnant and kind of flippant about the whole thing, easily skipping days and even whole weeks of working out for various reasons. We also kind of discussed our eating habits and how we have managed to fall back into our old habits of eating out constantly, which is considerably less healthy than what we could be eating at home. We also both acknowledged, though, how important losing weight is to us and are determined to re-focus and improve upon what we’ve been doing already. We also recognized the fact that Webster defines “crazy” as “repeating the same actions expecting different results.” We have both acknowledged how that is true of our workout regime. We keep doing the same program every day and we keep crashing and burning at one point or another. I figure that we should continue with the program that we are doing but mix in some other ones, as well, to keep a bit of variety in the workout regime and really challenge ourselves in different ways. Fortunately, we have a lot of different options to work with here, including varying types of DVD programs, a whole lot of walking space in our surrounding area and the apartment complex gym. We’ve also got a pool right here that we could easily use for exercise. We have a lot of different options, basically, that we are not taking full advantage of. We are both really dedicated to the whole idea of losing weight and now is the time for us to really step things up before we let it fizzle out completely. I refuse to let that happen, for myself or for my Mom. We both need this. We both need each other’s support in this, as well.

So, it is 11:14pm now and I am feeling pretty exhausted. I went to Walgreen’s today and picked up a couple of bars of Yardley’s gentle moisturizing bar soap and washed my face with it, as well as moisturizing with the Clinique stuff that April gave me. My skin feels really great and I am all prepped and ready for bed. I need to get my rest tonight, too. Tomorrow I have to get up and workout, then work until 6pm and follow that up with my make up piano lesson at 7pm. I have practiced the piece a few times over the past few days and feel much more comfortable with it than I did before. I wouldn’t say that I have it mastered, by any means, but I am doing much better with it than I was before. There are a few things I am having a bit of trouble with, as far as the piece goes, but they are things that I wouldn’t really be able to figure out on my own at this point, anyway. I will have to address those things with Viktor at tomorrow night’s lesson, though. I am excited to get back to my lessons, though. Right now, though, I am most excited about getting into my bed and falling asleep. Have a good night. I know I will.